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The call was timely and timeless. It also has deep Christian roots.
More, the call for transformation and change from the Makati
Business Club, the Management Association of the Philippines and the
Coalition for National Transformation, was the mantra in a recently
concluded, history-making election. Across the globe, there were no
two words more widely invoked than change and transformation.
But why did the call of the Makati Business
Club, Management Association of the Philippines and the
Coalition—backed by five bishops—just fall on deaf Filipino
ears? Why was there no resonance? Supposedly, farmers like myself,
who get their rush of adrenalin from calls for change, would clench
their fists and say Amen (automatically) to such calls.
I was trained to respond, passionately and
wholeheartedly, to such calls. My grandfathers left their farms to
join Pedro Abad Santos. My parents fought with the Huks against the
Japanese forces. My only memberships in life are the following:
labor unions, press guilds and peasant organizations.
In many ways, I represent the quintessential
Filipino Everyman always feeling ennobled and always hooking himself
to movements for change and transformation.
Yet, I just shrugged off the call, as if it were
a routine jig from a bunch of jerks. Or a sham call for change from
a confederacy of pretenders.
Was I turned off by the tableaux of power, perch
and privilege from where the supposed agents for transformation and
change made their call? Was it because none of the advocates looked
like a peasant who I can identify with? Was it because the bishops
reminded us of Marcelo H. del Pilar’s frailes, the generous
dispenser of indulgences?
The lack of diversity was frightening. Those who
made the call seem to have come from one mold: spoiled, pampered,
privileged. One got the sense that, on a personal realm, not one of
the advocates got jailed, got fire hosed or was persecuted for his
or her beliefs.
You can’t find in the advocates the slimmest
glimmer of authenticity and a sense of praxis.
The more compelling reason behind the
indifference of the Filipino Everyman to what was otherwise an
uplifting call was the feeling—nagging and tugging—that these
advocates of change and transformation are themselves exploiters of
our Everyman.
Look at the banks these advocates own/run and
check their lending thrust. They would rather put their money into
the alternative compliance provisions of the Agri-Agra law (which
requires banks to devote 25 per cent of their yearly loan portfolio
to agriculture and agrarian reform beneficiaries) than give out
loans to farmers and follow the spirit and intent of the law.
Que barbaridad? Why should we lend money to
these peasants? We can just do paper compliance by investing in
housing and buying government securities.
Oh, some of them help fund micro-financing
institutions that lend out money to grass roots activities. But
again, there is a rub. These micro-financing institutions have
interest rates at par with the charges of the usurers. It is the
same old story. Usurers in suits and usurers in flip-flops.
But what about employment? Are not these guys
employing people in the companies they own or run?
These advocates for change have mostly chained
their workers to a life of misery. They pay minimum wage or they pay
below the required wage. Employees that have served them for a
lifetime are given the minimum compensation required by the law. The
ones in suits get the offices with view, the prettiest secretaries,
the Beemers, even the golden parachute when they bungle big-time.
The employees? They deserve the cluster houses
of 30-square meters each.
We read everyday that the wealthiest of the
wealthy in these groups have hoards of cash that are at hand for
buying sprees: power and mining concerns, toll roads, media
entities, new media institutions.
Because there are only feeble rules and mediocre
regulation, they can do all the complex share swaps that mostly
shaft their small and unsuspecting shareholders.
Among themselves, there are only loose and fast
rules. They already own 85 per cent of the country, where there is
no functioning center. And while they preach about change and
transformation, they covet what is yet not theirs.
The punching bags of most of these crusaders for
change and transparency are mainly small-time congressmen, crude
promdis in cheap, smelly polyester suits whose specialty is hustling
from their Countrywide Development Fund projects.
Or small-time Local Government Unit leaders, who
then get beaten up in the media as promdi devils that deserve
national condemnation and scorn.
What was utterly sickening, really, was the
hypocrisy.
mvrong@yahoo.com
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